--Inasmuch as man depends on God as his Lord, and created
reason is wholly subject to uncreated truth, he is bound when God makes
a revelation to obey it by faith. This faith is a supernatural virtue,
and the beginning of man's salvation who believes revealed things to
be true, not for their intrinsic truth as seen by the natural light
of reason, but for the authority of God in revealing them. But,
nevertheless that faith might be agreeable to reason, God willed to
join miracles and prophecies, which, showing forth his omnipotence and
knowledge, are proofs suited to the understanding of all. Such we have
in Moses and the prophets, and above all in Christ. Now, all those
things are to be believed which are written in the word of God, or
handed down by tradition, which the Church by her teaching has proposed
for belief.

"No one can be justified without this faith, nor shall any one, unless
he persevere therein to the end, attain everlasting life. Hence God,
through his only-begotten Son, has established the Church as the
guardian and teacher of his revealed word. For only to the Catholic
Church do all those signs belong which make evident the credibility of
the Christian faith. Nay, more, the very Church herself, in view of
her wonderful propagation, her eminent holiness, her exhaustless
fruitfulness in all that is good, her Catholic unity, her unshaken
stability, offers a great and evident claim to belief, and an undeniable
proof of her divine mission. Thus the Church shows to her children that
the faith they hold rests on a most solid foundation. Wherefore, totally
unlike is the condition of those who, by the heavenly gift of faith,
have embraced the Catholic truth, and of those who, led by human
opinions, are following, a false religion."

"OF FAITH AND REASON.--Moreover, the Catholic Church has ever held and
now holds that there exists a twofold order of knowledge, each of which
is distinct from the other, both as to its principle and its object. As
to its principle, because in the one we know by natural reason, in the
other by divine faith; as to the object, because, besides those things
which our natural reason can attain, there are proposed to our belief
mysteries hidden in God, which, unless by him revealed, cannot come to
our knowledge.

"Reason, indeed, enlightened by faith, and seeking, with diligence and
godly sobriety, may, by God's gift, come to some understanding, limited
in degree, but most wholesome i